- Growth Classics
- Posts
- NFR #23 - D2C Acquisitions, Snapchat, NFT's & Canned Wine
NFR #23 - D2C Acquisitions, Snapchat, NFT's & Canned Wine
D2C Acquisitions, Snapchat, NFT's & Canned Wine
☕️ Morning Inspiration:
“For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end.”
→ Michelle Obama
⬇️
🤖 eCommerce News:
“British social media publisher LadBible has debuted its first e-commerce live broadcast after partnering with TikTok to host the closing live show of its ‘On Trend’ event. The e-commerce event sees the publisher broadcast direct to its audience, boosting engagement with new and entertaining experiences.
Hosted on the @ladbible TikTok account, the two-day live shopping event makes buying fun by offering participants exclusive offers and discounts from popular brands, served against a backdrop of entertainment from creators and musicians.”
“Whym, a conversational commerce startup founded by former Snap employees, wants to make it easier for consumers to shop online via their mobile devices. Instead of filling out long checkout forms and entering in payment card details by hand, Whym’s solution offers a single-tap checkout experience where customers can pay via Apple Pay or Google Pay or even over a text message. The startup is now announcing $4.3 million in new seed funding, following its early traction with CPG, wellness and beauty brands.”
“San Francisco, California-based Heap, which was founded by Matin Movassate and Ravi Parikh in 2013, aims to pinpoint digital pain points by collecting data on customers automatically, including what they click, where they go, and what they do. The platform attempts to algorithmically identify events and behaviours that most impact a digital experience and provides tools to help teams locate the insights they need without help from engineers.”
“The Stable, a commerce agency known for bringing some of the world’s most exciting brands into retailers like Target, Walmart, and Amazon has acquired two of the country’s leading Shopify agencies, BVA and Zehner.
These strategic acquisitions bring together The Stable’s retail strength with BVA and Zehner’s deep DTC and Shopify design and implementation expertise. The combined offering creates the largest, strongest, and most impactful modern commerce agency for consumer brands globally.”
“Bored Apes Yacht Club (BAYC), which has become the break-out NFT project of the year as more users have raced to buy the pictures of monkeys and sent floor prices soaring to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Part of that value has been centered on the belief that BAYC can become a cultural touchstone, and the group took a big step toward that goal today, announcing that they’ve partnered with blockchain gaming unicorn Animoca Brands to release a Bored Apes-themed game next year.”
“Harry’s Labs, the in-house incubator started by razor brand Harry’s Inc., announced Monday it agreed to acquire Lumē, the direct-to-consumer brand created to help control all-over body odor.
Harry’s created the innovation group in 2018 that has backed or launched several consumer product companies, including cat products startup Cat Person, body care line Flamingo and hair care line Headquarters.”
“HURR launched in 2019 and has a hybrid business model, combining peer-to-peer fashion rentals, direct partnerships with fashion outlets and a white-label service with retailers such as Selfridges Rental. It also has a physical store in Selfridges London, and a partnership with global resale platform Depop.
Commenting, Victoria Prew, CEO and founder of HURR, said: “As a millennial, I’m part of a generation that loves shared ownership. We’ve all witnessed the rise of disruptive tech-first businesses such as Airbnb and Uber and, if we can rent our houses and cars, why not our wardrobes.”
“Nike is taking a plunge deeper into the world of crypto collectibles, announcing that they’re acquiring the NFT studio RTFKT (pronounced “artifact”).
The acquisition announcement comes at an opportune time for the studio; RTFKT is currently behind one of the most talked-about NFT project drops of the month — a sweeping avatar partnership with artist Takashi Murakami called CloneX. Since its initial drop less than three weeks ago, the project has already seen nearly $65 million in transaction volume according to crypto tracker CryptoSlam.”
⬇️
📈 Trends Of The Week:
The Alcohol Packaging Trend That Thinks Inside the Box
“The Signal: US boxed wine sales in the week of March 7, 2020, rose 53% compared to the same week in 2019. The top 7 brands saw combined growth of 13.5% to 53.4m cases in 2020. One of them, Bota Box, gained ~1m customers.
As for canned wine, volume sales this March were up 3.8k%+ from 2017.”
&
“Ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages are the fastest-growing product category in the alcohol market.
Single-serving boxes could suit campers and hikers
Resealable cartons would be ideal for in-flight service.
Cans would suit sports venues, where fans often carry multiple drinks to their seats.
Canned wine vending machines at motels, theaters, and festivals would save on bar infrastructure”
Floor Furniture Hits the Ground Running
“Google search interest for “Floor Chair” and “Floor Sofa” is on the rise again after reaching an all-time high in November last year. The #floorsofa hashtag has ~230k views on TikTok, and #tatamichair (a traditional Japanese floor chair) has ~35k views.
Monthly Amazon search interest is rising, according to Jungle Scout:
“Gaming chair floor”: +93% (this one brings in a cool $413k/mo.)
“Kids floor lounger”: +91%
“Floor lounger adult”: +74%
“Floor rocker”: +52%”
Influencer Marketing Platform Market Size Worth $84.89 Billion By 2028
The global influencer marketing platform market size is anticipated to reach USD 84.89 billion by 2028, exhibiting a CAGR of 30.3% over the forecast period, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. The growing deployment of Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI)-based virtual influencers has offered new growth prospects for the market.”
⬇️
🛍 My marketing highlight
My marketing highlight is Ryan Reynolds agency Maximum Effort reactive Peloton ad featuring Mr Big.
“At the end of the first episode of the Sex and The City reboot, Carrie Bradshaw’s love interest clips into his Peloton for his 1,000th ride and when he dismounts, he has a heart attach and dies. Peloton was unaware of the plot line when HBO applied to use the company’s trademarks, instructor, and other intellectual property.”
⬇️
❓Quotes that make you think
“You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.”
“What’s the greater risk? Letting go of what people think – or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?”
“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.”
Brene Brown
“Note to self: It’s a good idea to ask, “What am I not doing?”
“In any human interaction, the required amount of communication is inversely proportional to the level of trust.”
Ben Horowitz
“We seldom realize, for example, that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.” Alan Watts
“Don’t be afraid to take time to learn. It’s good to work for other people. I worked for others for 20 years. They paid me to learn.” Vera Wang
⬇️
⛓ Mental Model Of The Week:
Your Circle Of Competence
“Where should we devote our limited time in life, to achieve the most success?
Charlie Munger, Warren Buffets right hand man at Berkshire Hathaway has a simple prescription:
You have to figure out what your own aptitudes are. If you play games where other people have the aptitudes and you don’t, you’re going to lose. And that’s as close to certain as any prediction that you can make. You have to figure out where you’ve got an edge. And you’ve got to play within your own circle of competence.”
“I’m no genius. I’m smart in spots—but I stay around those spots.”
Tom Watson Sr., Founder of IBM
⬇️
📚 Book I'm Reading:
“In a powerful new vision Dr Brené Brown challenges everything we think we know about vulnerability, and dispels the widely accepted myth that it's a weakness. She argues that, in truth, vulnerability is strength and when we shut ourselves off from vulnerability - from revealing our true selves - we distance ourselves from the experiences that bring purpose and meaning to our lives.”